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eldavojohn writes "A common argument one might encounter in intelligent design or the arduous process of resolving science with religion is that the physical constants of our world are fine tuned for life by some creator or designer. A University of Alberta theoretical physicist claims quite the opposite when it comes to the cosmological constant. His paper says that our ever expanding universe has a positive cosmological constant and he explains that the optimum cosmological constant for maximizing the chances of life in the universe would be slightly negative: 'any positive value of the constant would tend to decrease the fraction of matter that forms into galaxies, reducing the amount available for life. Therefore the measured value of the cosmological constant, which is positive, is evidence against the idea that the constants have been fine-tuned for life.'"

So...our "loving" Creator/Father/God put us in a hostile environment where we are considered abominations and have no reason to exist other than because he went on a bender and thought it was a good idea?

lets try a thought experiment.... lets say we have a person.Upon seeing a child bleeding to death in the street he walks off to have a coffee leaving the child to die over the course of long painful hours despite having an entire backpack full of bandages, lots of medical training and copious free time.Is this man a good person?No.

Lets say he was walking down that same street and saw a child being raped to death by someone else and despite and entire backpack full of guns, training in martial arts and a team of bodyguards with him he walks past and lets it happen.Is this man a good person?No.

This god we're talking about.He know's everything that's happening and can do absolutely anything.He he literally knows about children being raped to death and does nothing, nothing to stop it despite supposedly having both the knowledge and the means.That's one damned evil god you've got there.

supposedly he will punish the people who did it....later.... as long as they don't say that they're really really sorry in the mean time and really mean it.... and if he does punish them they go to the same place as any of their victims who committed suicide to escape the torture and rapes..... ok the more I dig into this the more horrible the concept of such a god existing is.

To put it into context - must a parent always intervene in their child's life? Or must the parent fill said life with senseless, meaningless, cruel, dehumanizing suffering, so that the child learns nothing but dies in abject agony and pain without sense or reason? That's what the god you are imagining is doing. If that one happens to be real, I gladly side with Satan, because he's the only moral figure in the whole tale by rebelling against that sick fuck. For whatever reason.

"put us in a hostile environment where we are considered abominations and have no reason to exist"Holy crap. I'm no creationist, but I have to ask:did your mommy not love you enough when you were growing up?

Well, you can't prove a negative ("it wasn't designed"), can you? So the onus is on those who say it was to demonstrate that it must have been. Clearly in the space of all possible universes the anthropic principle rules.

That's a terrible analogy. Consider instead: There is a lottery to determine whether or not the human race lives or dies. We wouldn't be around to comprehend any losing draws, so we make the (flawed) conclusion that we were always bound to have won.

And the odds of us living would be precisely what the were--though in the case of your analogy, more easily calculable.

That is the only question at hand in either argument. The results speak none whatsoever to those odds.

I find the Anthropic Principle argument literally astonishingly weak in this form, and find it difficult to believe anyone can give it a second thought unless overwhelmingly biased toward a particular worldview, to about the degree they'd deny 2+2=4 if it was similarly incompatible.

Just for starters, Pascal never intended his wager to be a formal proof of anything.

What did he intend it as, then? I find it interesting

It's not just that it's not a good argument, it's that there really isn't anyone it applies to other than someone who already believes in a particular god.

For enders, it doesn't matter, it's just a conversation starter.

About once a week, I get asked, "What if you're wrong?" This is almost as vacuous as Pascal's own formulation. To someone who doesn't currently hold a belief in a particular god, and knows that there are many gods to choose from, "What if you're wrong?" can just as easily be turned on its head -- what i

That's still not the right analogy. The anthropic principle just says: If we wouldn't have won the lottery, we would not be here, therefore from the fact we are here we can conclude we have won the lottery.

The lottery exists. Whether your think of it, whether you win it, it does not matter. It is there.

The principle states that you COULD NOT even ponder whether it's fine tuned when it were any different.

If you want to compare it to a lottery, then a more apt comparison would be that the result would only count if "your" numbers were drawn. Else, it would not be announced and the drawing is repeated until your numbers come up.

Perhaps a more common view among physicists today is the idea that there is a multiverse with a wide range of values for the constants of physics, and by the selection principle of observership (the weak anthropic principle), we find ourselves in the part of the multiverse where life is possible and/or relatively common (at least compared to other parts of the multiverse) [7]. However, there is still considerable controversy over whether such a multiverse that would be necessary for this explanation really exists.

And then later the author says (calling this the 'third view'):

The third view, of observer selection within a multiverse, is hard to prove or disprove directly, since it appears very difficult to obtain direct information about other possible parts of a multiverse. However, if a simple theory were developed that gives good statistical explanations for what we do observe and that also predicts a multiverse that we cannot directly observe, such a theory could become highly convincing (analogous to the prediction by general relativity of very high curvature in black-hole interior regions that cannot be directly observed).

I believe the intent of this paper was to directly address the claims instead of using the weak anthropic principle. More importantly, his argument is falsifiable (that coveted trait in the scientific process) whereby the other three views are not at this time. As other posters have pointed out [slashdot.org] we can now attempt to reason out this theory further.

Arg.. Can't believe I failed on the meaning of this. It's not modus tollens... I forget the name, but it's another logical fallacy. Basically the result (we exist) does follow from the proposition (ceiling cat created us), but it does not follow in reverse.. Thus our existence isn't proof of ceiling cat.

I agree that the fact that life exists under a set of conditions doesn't inherently prove they were created specifically for the life that observes those conditions.

Nor do I agree with Don Page's suggestion that it is definitively proven that a Creator didn't create the universe, because by his calculations, the universe isn't perfectly optimized for the maximum creation of galaxies.

If we could stand outside of the universe and definitively record whether or not the universe is ex

Doesn't the Anthropic Principle adequately deal with this issue in any case?

No, the Anthropic Principle simply states that the Universe must be compatible with life since life is observed to exist within it. Trying to use it to actually explain why anything is as it is is confusing cause and effect, unless you can prove that every possible universe exists or something to that effect.

No. The anthropic principle is what this issue is. The question is which version of the anthropic is correct. Martin Gardner did an excellent article [nybooks.com] on this (sorry, most of the article is behind a paywall -- I have a paper copy in his anthology "The Night is Large"). The problem with the cosmological argument isn't "the anthropic principle", the problem is selection bias.

I find this somewhat comforting. The Earth is becoming less and less 'special' with new worlds being found nearly every day now--worlds that may sustain life. Now it turns out that the universe is 'flawed' from our perspective, too. In a way, it's sort of optimistic--there's a way that it could be better, and the possibility arises that maybe it'd be possible to find a 'better' place.

As one of our fellow apartment-dwellers likes to point out, our scientific view of the universe is directly influenced by:

1. Our own biological bias (meaning the way we, as humans, perceive things)2. The fundamental elements that make up life in this galaxy3. The math we use

Were any of these three things different, our scientific view of reality could be completely changed.

Unlikely beyond the level of mere triviality. The bio basis seems to make no sense, kind of a long delayed hangover of the vital humor approach to organic chemistry, "life force theory". The fundamental elements seems to make no sense, in that the fundamental elements seem to reliably and predictably follow our scientific view of reality (that's kind of the whole point of chemistry). The math we use seems irrelevant, binary, hex, octal, decimal, it all comes out equivalent and the "dependency tree" of ma

Another objection is also the empirical evidence we're able to collect. For example, in 100,000,000,000 years time, the expansion of the Universe will mean that any future civilisation will look out into the sky and only see the Milky Way (stars will still exist then). There will be no evidence of a "big bang", inflation (the cosmic microwave background will have gone) and no evidence that other galaxies exist or have ever existed. Such a civilisation would not even think of dark matter, dark energy, dark flow, or anything else we need to cobble theory to observation.

I wonder what is missing from the picture now that would otherwise cause us to question and change our understanding of reality? Probably quite a lot!

and the possibility arises that maybe it'd be possible to find a 'better' place.

The definition of "universe" as I understand it means that there is no chance for contact, influence, or observation across its "boundaries".

As we have no knowledge of what all the cosmological constants are (or whether they are truly constant), nor even the slighest inkling of whether it would be possible to change them (definition of "constant" seems to suggest that, no, you cant), its not really optimistic at all. You seem to be trying to find a silver lining to a speculation where none seems to exist.

and the possibility arises that maybe it'd be possible to find a 'better' place.

Yet another person fails to comprehend exactly what kind of distances exist between the stars. The answer is no. Unless of course you can find a way to travel significantly FASTER than the speed of light, because even AT the speed it light it would take you hundreds of years to reach stars currently known to have planets orbiting them.

slightly more to the edge wouldn't be habitable, anywhere (and by "near" we mean "within 10000 lightyears) of a supernova event is not habitable, so life is not possible in things like "stellar nurseries"

10000 light years? No. Supernovae are survivable events (for life, not necessarily civilization) even at a few dozen light years. Life might be able to survive as close as a few light years from a Supernova.

A lot of the other things you are saying are wrong, too. But I just picked this one.

The people who want to believe that a creator is pulling the strings in our favor aren't willing to listen to science.

We don't need to resolve science with religion... we need to reconcile religion with science. Once your god is outside the big bang where scientists just shrug, or addressing things like an afterlife... run wild.

If your religion can't incorporate what science tells us, you're choosing to live in ignorance and take your holy book as literal, factual information.

I know astrophysicists who are devoutly religious... first and foremost, they turn to the science to explain the universe as it exists. For them, god answers a completely different set of questions -- and I have no problem with that. If any entity DID create the universe, it's largely going to be beyond our ability to fully comprehend.

If a god exists, he's such a massively abstract and complex being, that trying to fit him/it/whatever into OUR understanding of the universe is laughable.

The really devout ones would probably take this as evidence of intelligent design anyway.

The ones I know who are scientists who are also religious mostly accept that god isn't micro-managing the day-to-day stuff.

To me, I picture something more like us being critters in a lab experiment... "oh, look, the little blue ones are wearing pointy hats this year, how cute! I like it when they wear hats -- uh oh, the purple-speckled ones are fighting again, what a shame -- oops, I think I just stepped on the green

The really devout ones would probably take this as evidence of intelligent design anyway.

The ones I know who are scientists who are also religious mostly accept that god isn't micro-managing the day-to-day stuff.

Most of the ones I know see it as a racial heritage. Heck most of the regular people I know see it the same way. For one of them, on a single issue by issue basis, she completely disagrees with everything from Rome. I mean everything, when I write everything. Yet she almost violently defends her identify as an Irish-Catholic, because its a racial heritage issue. Telling her she's not really a catholic is very much like saying her dad is not really her biological dad, if you know what I mean. Or trying

Most creation-believing Christians that don't adhere to abiogenesis and billions of years of evolution would, in fact, say that life is clearly a miracle that only God can produce. They have been saying that for many, many years. Your hypothetical quote would not be any sort of twisting; it'd be the same as they have been saying for years. I don't think that would be a case of the creationist twisting an argument, it would be the non-creationist... um, setting up a strawman, in this case, I think would

So... everyone's religion should reconcile with your view of "a god.":) If it is laughable to fit Him into our understanding of the universe... then how is it we reconcile Him with OUR science? It seems that you basically have asserted that God cannot exist because He cannot fit into our science while maintaining that if He did exist, He would not be able to fit into our science in the first place? So how is it our science can prove or disprove anything about God?

So... everyone's religion should reconcile with your view of "a god.":) If it is laughable to fit Him into our understanding of the universe... then how is it we reconcile Him with OUR science?

No, I'm saying that if a creator-god put all of this together, the universe as it exists is part of that, and pretending like that isn't the case serves no purpose. Reality exists, and trying to contort that reality to match a belief that, say, the Earth is 6000 years old is kind of loony. If 'he' made it, then w

For the most part, I agree... except that I would also argue that if a creator is outside of our science (and yet created our science), then our science is not the highest authority; and, in fact, if our science assumes no God and tries to explain everything from an atheist POV (i.e., everything must be explained naturally), then it could be that science could be wrong.

Generally, I'd argue that science without God has some issues at it's foundation - why science works in the first place, aside from "because

We don't need to resolve science with religion... we need to reconcile religion with science.

Er personally I don't see the need for reconciliation, either. We need to accept that a certain not insignificant percentage of the population will always be prone to manipulation and belief in the incredible. So either you replace it with another lie that keeps them away from explosives and weapons and important decisions, or you shoot them. They refuse to be educated, so there's not really m

I know astrophysicists who are devoutly religious... first and foremost, they turn to the science to explain the universe as it exists. For them, god answers a completely different set of questions.

Well exactly. Personally, I think Science answers the how and Religion answers the why.

The problem is that most people get mixed up in the difference of the two. How something happens and Why something happens are two different questions. Why often implies some motivation by some entity for the action preformed. How did this post come about? I typed keys and clicked submit and the internet had a bunch of traffic etc etc. Why did this post come about? Because I, as a person, decided to type this out to you.

As a thought experiment, I would ask you why grass is green. You can go and explain that the chlorophyll is green and a major component. And you can explain that the chemical make up of chlorophyll typically has an Electromagnetic absorption to certain colours and that green is the visible colour it reflects. And you can explain that it's a certain frequency in the EM spectrum that is green and how exactly the absorption of other light works, and you could go on forever explaining the process. All you would be doing is explaining how the grass is green. And you can ask "How" an infinite number of times, and I think that often drives scientific progress.

But you only need to ask "Why" once, and ultimately you know, that you just don't know. You don't know if there is some omni-potent being who decided exactly how the universe would operate. You don't know if there is anything after all this. Personally I like to think there is, as I find it a bit comforting to know that there'd be something at the end, or else why bother at all. At least, that's my philosophy.

Exactly. If God were a man, we'd actually be able to understand him -- and he'd communicate pretty directly with us about what he wants. But since god is a woman, she expects us to "just know" what she wants, and gets all pissy and vindictive when we don't. Go fig.

The author of the linked study appears not to have considered that a universe more dense with galaxies would be a universe with many more planet-sterilizing gamma ray bursts [wikipedia.org], which would not be terribly conducive to life.

Even though BitZstream is using quite a few flame inducing words, he does have a point. A quick google suggests that we've identified life on Earth that uses gamma rays for energy. This [scienceagogo.com] was one of the examples I found by searching...

Or it suggests that He didn't design the entire universe as a habitation for, at least, the same creatures as those on earth; rather, the earth was for that. Very shocking - a specific habitat was created for specific creatures, rather than the entire universe.

Known attempts at permutations of physical constants: 1Success at creating intelligent life: 1

Of course, one could never argue against the line of reasoning suggested by the summary--whatever degree of life exists, arbitrarily declare there should be "more", and conjecture (yes, it's sheer conjecture--the actual results from modifying the cosmological constant would require far more calculation of than is provided) something else would have made it "better".

Personally, though I'm used to having my code second-guessed, they'd have to come up with a much better criticism than this...

This is biased toward non intelligent design right off the bat. A creator would only need to optimize for life the planet or planets that he intended to deposit life upon. The fact that the universe at large is biased against life makes life here on earth all that more special.

"Creating more Galaxies" is not necessarily synonymous with "Creating more galaxies that can sustain life". If increasing the cosmological constant increases the percentage of matter that forms galaxies, but also changes the makeup of those galaxies to be inhospitable to life, then there would be an overall decrease in the universes 'suitability for life'.

Given that there is no (currently known) method of testing how a change in the cosmological constant would affect other properties of matter and energy

Science. Religion. They are not a competition. Religion answers questions for us that Science cannot. Science answers questions for us that Religion doesn't address. Many famous scientists from bygone ages were devout believers in God, or Allah, or (insert other deity here), and yet made great strides to science. They didn't see the two as mutually exclusive. I blame arrogance and intellectual hubris for thinking that you can live without one or the other. Learn to accept both, and you will be a muc

Out of curiosity, like what? What questions can you demonstrate science cannot answer, but religion does provide an answer for? (an actual answer, mind you, not a hopeful guess!)

It should be kept in mind that many of the famous scientists you could name were products of their times and cultures, where it was unthinkable that somebody could not subscribe to the predominant religion. Many of them invoked their deity as an explanation for questions they did not know the answer to, and yet modern science has

There is a large class of problems where science falls down. These are typically two-state systems where it is possible to know the system is in one state but it isn't possible to know the system is in the other.

For example: your computer crashes intermittently and you suspect a bad DIMM. You replace the DIMM. It is possible to know that you have failed to fix the computer: the computer need only crash again. But it is not possible to know that you have successfully repaired the computer. The problem was in

Before this disintegrates into the inevitable slew of religion bashing...

From TFA:

laws of physics contain various constants that have very specific, mysterious values that nobody can explain

Maybe its because mathematics is (often) an approximation. You can hide oodles of complexity with a constant, especially in a system that is not understood i.e. the universe.

One explanation is that this is pure accident and that there is no deeper reason for the coincidence. Another idea is that there is some deeper law of nature, which we have yet to discover, that sets the constants as they are. Yet another is that the constants can take more or less any value in an infinite multitude of universes. In ours, they are just right, which is why we have been able to evolve to observe them.

Wow that's convincing. So basically, constants are either random, hiding complexity, or rooted in some string theory nonsense about infinite parallel universes. Oh yea, or they are created and tuned by God/gods/FSM, which is what this "evidence" claims

How do you know a negative constant would lead to any life at all? It seems like things would be so radically different that none of the assumptions and observations you can make in our universe would still apply. This discussion is not serious, it is pure foolishness, just like children sitting around playing make believe. Not that that can't be productive and useful, but at least call it what it is.

Actually the effects of the cosmological constant are quite well understood.

The quantity itself is a hypothetical parameter used to justify the difference between a theoretical model of the universe and observable reality. Don't confuse models and theory with reality. If the theory matched reality, there wouldn't even be a cosmological constant. [wikipedia.org]

No, you simply don't understand. Charlie Sheen was *put here* to make you want to go to church and *believe* that there must be a better place. Unfortunately it sometimes works too well, and some people take the 'early exit plan' to get it all over with. One can only take so much Charlie in a life-time.

lambasting the science tag this is filed under. Just because a physicist claims something doesn't make it scientific. This would mean it's the complete opposite which is disproving unscientific beliefs.

Why do you associate faith with lunacy? Perhaps you should look at the faith we all share in science as an explanation for everything. As far as I am aware, there is no definitive proof that there is a finite set of deterministic rules that govern all phenomena. We simply have faith that the scientific method is universal and that, given enough time, we have all the tools we need to figure out absolutely everything.

Because if one person believes he has an invisible friend that dictates what he can and what he can't do and will punish him if he doesn't follow that invisible guy's arbitrary rules, he will be sent to a psychiatrist.

The child kept talking about his invisible friend, saying that this friend gave him guidance and told him how to act. The parents of the child grew frustrated and embarrassed, and took the child to a doctor to get him cured.

The man kept talking about his invisible friend, saying that this friend gave him guidance and told him how to act. The man was elected as leader of the world's greatest superpower and given control of a nuclear arsenal.

Yes, but when the cops enforce the law and you get punished, you go to jail or you get a fine. It's tangible.

When you "do bad stuff" and don't listen to "God" (or whatever term you feel like using), there's no direct punishment. It all takes place after you die. You go to heaven or hell. Very conveniently, no one can confirm their existence, since you have to die to get in. It seems as if the people who invented this nonsense purposely made it so it couldn't be disproven by any living being. Good thing the

Of course you can make the argument that gravity and the like are testable and "real", but how realistic is that?

Pretty damn realistic, I think. You can test gravity. You can test nuclear physics. You can do that, even if you haven't. Or you can "rely on the experiences and reporting of others," of whom there are many. You can also combine these two methods and replicate the experiments of others.

The difference is that you can actually test everything you mention. You can walk off a cliff (I would not recommend it, but that "arbitrary" rule is not so arbitrary, you break it, you get an immediate negative response). You can touch that flame (and unless something is really wrong with the whole heat thing, you'll singe your fingers). You can walk out on the road and test Newton's laws. They can all be put to the test. You might not be able to actually produce a nuclear reaction, lacking the training an

Perhaps you should look at the faith we all share in science as an explanation for everything.

Funny, last I checked, scientists themselves were saying that we do not have scientific explanation for everything and that more research is needed. Nobody believes there is a scientific explanation for everything, because frankly, there is not.

Faith is, as it turns out, completely irrational, based on no logic whatsoever, and usually just a matter of what makes people "feel good." I am not saying that there is anything specifically wrong with that -- people should be just as free to have faith make

Calling religion lunacy is like beating up an old dying grandma. Everyone knows she cannot hit back with any significant force. If you want to do something impressive, try showing that society would be better off without religion, or that people with conviction are less content overall. Now That would be like whipping the old grandma at a knitting or cookie-backing contest.

This was my thought, too... the conclusion that this somehow is an argument against a creator would only come if you assume certain ideas from the non-creator view. That is, that having a better chance of *developing* life is better, therefore having a creator create a cosmological constant that does not increase the evolutionary chance of life developing...

Really, it sounds quite mixed up. The low chance of evolving life does not seem to be a good argument against having a creator.

Furthermore, what is not tuned for us? The "tuning" seems to refer to the likelihood of other worlds (in other galaxies) evolving life. How is the universe "sub-optimal"... sub-optimal for what? Are you under the understanding that creationists believe God created the entire universe for creatures on earth to live in? As far as I am aware in the Bible, it specifically states that man is to "rule" over the earth. He makes no mention of Mars.

None of these arguments have any bearing on the subject, because in the end you are speculating on what said creator "would have done". Would constants be biased in favor of more favorable, or less favorable conditions? Noone knows, and those arguing against a creator will make the argument that the results of their studies disprove said creator.

At the end of the day, the statement on creation tends to be "things are as they are because they were intentionally made that way." Showing that X constant make

Venus is well outside the habitable zone, for obvious reasons. It's not near habitability. If you moved the Earth inward from 1 AU to 0.95 AU, the stratosphere would moisten and you'd gradually lose all the planet's water to photodissociation followed by hydrogen escape. This is arguably the inner edge of the habitable zone. If you moved the Earth in to 0.85 AU, you'd boil the oceans and produce a runaway greenhouse. Venus is at about 0.72 AU.

There's something wrong with an estimate that puts Venus (at 0.723 AU) inside the habitable zone, since it has a runaway greenhouse. That's a pretty good working definition of "uninhabitable". The 0.725 bound comes from an early paper with a simplified model. The later papers listed on Wikipedia (Hart et al., Fogg, Kasting et al.) all put the inner edge at around 0.95 AU, which we're even closer to. But there is some debate as to what would be "uninhabitable". According to Kasting, at 0.95 AU you would

Intelligent Design is pseudo science, an attempt to use science, logic, and reason to suggest the existence of God.

How does intelligent design use science? I cites the results of other science (mostly to attack them), but as far as I've seen never "uses" science. Rather, intelligent design presupposes an answer then tries to attack scientific results they don't like without using the scientific method to demonstrate anything, but while misleadingly calling their assertions "science".